


Noir

by Terminallydepraved



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Noir, Detectives, M/M, Murder Mystery, Private Investigators
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-02
Updated: 2018-12-02
Packaged: 2019-09-05 20:53:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,394
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16818295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Terminallydepraved/pseuds/Terminallydepraved
Summary: It's a dark and stormy night and Private Detective Hank Anderson wants nothing more than to go home, bury himself in another bottle or two, and leave this dingy old office long behind him. Getting away from his partner Gavin Reed would only do him good. But, before he can bid his office behind, he hears a knock on the door.In walks the Arkay brothers and a whole slew of new problems that Hank just knows he'll be knee deep in before the end of the night.





	Noir

**Author's Note:**

> i got a bit wild on twitter the other day and was encouraged by the masses to run with my idea of noir detectives hank and gavin encountering femme fatales connor and nines. it was a fun time and i probably took it too seriously. enjoy!

The evening was dark, rainy, and as shitty as the coffee staining rings into the wood of the desk. Hank glared at the ring and half considered wiping it away with his sleeve. It’d suit his mood to add to the stains already speckling his shirt sleeves and trousers. Cigarette ash, stale booze, the coffee, ink— it’d all coated him at one point or another, and laundry wasn’t quite so easy anymore now that he was left to do it on his own. Less need to show off too. When you always ended up going home alone, who was there left to impress?

A loud snore cut through the din of the storm just across the room. Hank’s brow twitched as he lifted his head, looking over the way to his “partner” and the work he was supposed to be doing. The hour might be late and the midnight oil well on its way to being burnt out, but really, they were still on the clock. Just because you were Gavin Fucking Reed and the devil himself wouldn’t look twice at you didn’t mean you could just fuck off with your feet on your desk.

Even if they hadn’t had a new case in ages and the paperwork they did now was old, desperate attempts to find new leads on cold files, they needed to act professional. It’d be the only thing to save them when work finally did come waltzing through that door.

Hank’s joints let out an unhealthy creak as he sat himself straight and reached for a stray bit of paper lurking in the depths of his cluttered desk. He balled it up, pressed his tongue between his teeth, and waited for a flash of lightning before counting down the seconds after. He’d been doing this all night, and he knew it’d only take… One… Two… Three… Four…!

He sent the ball of paper flying and it hit Gavin square in the stubbled jaw just as the peal of thunder rattled the windows and the walls.

His guffaw of laughter nearly drowned out Gavin’s muffled shout. The man, already tipped back in his seat with his feet kicked up, jolted roughly, just hard enough to send him flailing backwards. The poor bastard probably would’ve hit the ground if his desk wasn’t tucked up near the wall. The back of his chair caught on the old peeling wallpaper, adding another knick and dent to the plaster as it caught his chair and sent his head careening against the wall with a dull thud.

“Aw, bump your head, did you?” Hank prodded, dragging a hand down his bearded chin. “Need a bandaid for your booboo, Reed?”

Gavin rubbed at his head and hissed out a snarled, “Fuck off, Anderson,” as he tossed up his middle finger like the charming bastard he was.

Man, Hank wished. Hell, he’d rather do any number of things if it meant cutting this long night short. He melted into his seat and chuckled wryly, looking off towards the old clock they had mounted to the gated up fireplace tucked in the corner of the renovated office. It really was nearing midnight at this point.

“No sleeping on the job,” he said without much heat. They’d been at their casework combing for a good ten hours now, so when it came down to it, Hank couldn’t blame Gavin for falling asleep. “If I’ve gotta suffer, so do you.”

Gavin groaned, mocking Hank under his breath even as he scooted back up to his desk and picked up his dropped pen from where it’d fallen to the floor when he’d drifted on. To his credit he’d gotten through a sizeable chunk of folders. As bitchy as Gavin could be, he did good work. Hank hadn’t thought they’d be a good fit together when he’d first broken free from the Detroit Police Force, but bit by bit Gavin’s work ethic was proving him wrong.

That had been… oh, about six or so years ago. Anniversary to Hank saying “fuck it” fell in December if memory served, and with it a rainy, disappointing November now, he’d have to get ready for the date soon. A smile quirked his lips as his gaze drifted slowly around the rented office space. Maybe he’d get a cake for them. He and Gavin could have a little party to celebrate, open up a bottle of whiskey and just say fuck it ‘til the place looked shinier and cleaner than it actually was.

As if he wanted to spend more time with Reed than he had to. That’d be the day.

He blinked when he realized Gavin had been talking to him.

“-just don’t see why we’re still here,” Gavin muttered, tossing down another hastily completed form in the stack he’d been building on the floor by his foot. “I know we need money and this shit might have somethin’ hiding between the lines, but come on, its too fuckin’ late to be open. Why the hell can’t I take this home with me? I’d work faster there than in this musty old place.” _And with your musty old ass,_ he added beneath his breath, the room just small enough that Hank heard it just fine.

Hank frowned tersely. Yeah, definitely no party then. Another crack of thunder rattled through the place, sparing him a moment to formulate a response. His tongue felt thick in his mouth. His eyes itched in the shitty lighting. It really was a wonder the shitty old wiring in this place hadn’t given up the ghost after the battering it was getting from the storm outside.

“You already know why we’re here,” Hank said once the din eased as much as it was likely to short of the rain petering off entirely. He drummed his ink stained fingers on the desk and fiddled with his old fountain pen. A gift from his father, one of the big old names that made the DPD the powerhouse it was today. Sometimes Hank was glad the old man had croaked a decade ago. It probably was better he wasn’t alive to see his son pulling all-nighters in a crappy private investigator gig like this instead of the decorated officer he’d been just a few years ago. Just a washed up old drunk now, divorced and dishonored and pinching pennies in any way he could.

He pushed the fountain pen to the side and picked up a chewed up old pencil instead. He underlined a potential line of questioning on one of the papers, and then he pushed it into the to-be-revisited stack.

“Remind me,” Gavin drawled, already tipping his chair onto its back legs again. Uppity bastard really did never learn.

Hank sighed a heavy sigh and pushed back his chair a bit, turning it to face Gavin’s far neater desk. “Because,” he began, “we have work to do. You know as well as I do that all we do when we get home is sleep and drink, and I don’t need you gettin’ your files fucked up by those fleabags you let walk all over you at your place.”

Gavin’s chair slammed back onto the wooden floorboards with a loud clatter. He turned to glare at Hank, hair swept back off his high forehead in a curl that looked a right side more tired than it had when they came into work that morning.

“They aren’t _fleabags,_ you asshole,” he bit. “They’re fuckin’ cats and perfectly clean, unlike your mongrel of a dog.”

“Hey, don’t bring Sumo into this,” Hank started, knowing if they got into an argument about pets now the rest of the night really would be a fuckin’ bust. “He’s a good dog and you just can’t stand the thought of a havin’ a pet that actually loves you.”

“Oh, right,” Gavin snorted, throwing his hands up in surrender. “Because a fuckin’ bear of a dog is the only thing that could love you.”

Sometimes Hank really wondered why he’d gone into this private investigator business with a glorified asshole like Gavin Fucking Reed. Sometimes, like this time, he wondered why he didn’t make more work for himself by strangling the asshole himself and then hiding the body, taking up the job that’d be sure to follow just to pocket the money and disappear into the sunset a… not _better_ man, but definitely one with less stress on his shoulders. Hank had gone grey early and he liked to say that a good half of the pale hair on his head was thanks to the singular efforts of one Gavin _Fucking_ Reed.

“You know what, Reed?”

Gavin lowered his hands and crossed his arms. “No, Hank,” he said, cocking his head like the dick he was. “What don’t I know?”

Hank bared his teeth in a grin. “You can take your fuckin’ cats and shove them up your—”

Gavin never got to hear where he could shove them, and Hank barely formed the specific explicative on his lips before choking it back in a hurry when a knock sounded on the door at the far end of the room. Both of them froze in place, staring dumbly at one another. It’d been… a few weeks since their last job. Usually the prospective clients sent letters ahead asking about prices, availability—which was always _open,_ since they never had enough business—and asked about good times to stop by. They rarely ever had walk-ins. They never had them this late at night, only a few minutes shy of the clock striking midnight.

It wasn’t until a secondary knock came that Hank and Gavin scrambled to their feet. Hank nearly tripped over his stack of papers in his rush to get around his desk. Gavin, the one who had a much straighter shot towards the door, didn’t bother doing the same; instead he turned himself towards the grimy mirror he had mounted to the wall there his first day, fucking with his limp hair like the vain bastard he was. When he realized he couldn’t do much more for it, he turned his attention to straightening his meticulously fitted waistcoat. Hank had long foregone anything constricting like that a few hours ago. It really said something about Gavin’s vanity that he kept it buttoned up all proper when he was already resorting to sleeping at his desk.

Hell, maybe it said something about Hank that he’d stripped down to his dingy shirtsleeves as soon as he could swing it.

“Jesus Christ, Reed,” Hank muttered, reaching for the doorknob. Giving Gavin shit about it made him feel better either way. “Will you sit down and stop primpin’ like a girl on her first date?”

“Some of us have standards, Anderson,” Gavin shot back, but the bite behind it was lost as Hank opened the door and revealed who had come calling so late at night.

Only, it wasn’t just one caller; it was two. Two pale faces that looked so similar they could only be related, and positively _soaking_ wet. They both looked as if they’d walked to the office beneath the full force of the storm outside, no sign of an umbrella in sight and their coats soaked through completely. Dark trails of water had followed them up the steps and to the mat outside the door. Even as they stood there Hank could see the droplets coming off their dark, tangled hair.

The men were clasping hands down at their sides. The shorter of the two, pale but for two spots of high flush on his soft cheekbones, blinked big brown doe eyes at Hank.

“Please,” he whispered. “Can we come in?”

Hank swallowed hard, then coughed in a not-so-discreet fashion when he found his voice stuck in his throat like sticky toffee. “Yeah, uh, come on in,” he grunted, standing aside to let them pass by. He shot a look over their heads towards Gavin, shrugging helplessly as the two wet strangers trailed water after them and stood awkwardly in the middle of the room. The taller of the two, the one with eyes like blue chips of ice, looked around at the shelves and filing cabinets lining the walls critically. He had a sharper face than his… brother? Probably brother. His face was sharper and more stern than his brother, his shoulders broader, his mannerisms closed off and uninviting.

Hank closed the door behind him and carefully walked back towards his desk. Gavin had slowly sunk down into his chair, hands flat on the top of his desk as he waited for Hank to take the lead on this one. Figured. The one time Gavin waited for his lead was the one time Hank didn’t know how to proceed. The strangers didn’t seem any more compelled to start things off either. They just stood there and fidgeted, hands still clasped and clothes still liberally dripping water.

It wasn’t until the shorter of the two began to shiver outwardly that Hank found his voice.

“Are you two alright?” he asked, looking toward the grated up fireplace. The thing hadn’t been lit since before Hank had leased the place. There was some old wood in it from back then. Who knew how long it’d been since the chimney had last been cleaned… He glanced towards Gavin and nodded at the fireplace. Gavin pondered it for a moment, then shook his head, reaching for the coat hanging from the back of his chair. Hank reluctantly did the same. It was the safer option, and they couldn’t afford to come off as rude when they absolutely needed the work.

“Here,” Gavin grunted, coming off warmer than he usually did as he extended his coat towards the taller brother. “If you die of hypothermia in our office it’d fuck over our business model.”

Hank quickly shoved his own old, worn coat towards the short one. “Ignore him,” he grunted, clipping Gavin with his shoulder to send him back towards his corner. “It’s late and his manners already went to bed. Feel free to warm up with these. Sorry we don’t have anything better.”

“That’s quite alright,” the short one said, taking the coat gratefully and wrapping it around his shoulders. His brother wasn’t as accepting. He held Gavin’s coat and stared at it curiously. It was only after his brother nudged him and whispered, “It’s alright, Nines. I don’t want you to get sick,” that _Nines—_ and what sort of parent named their child that of all things?—deigned to put it on too. It sat oddly around his shoulders; he was broader than Gavin, but not quite as bulky around the arms.

The short one cleared his throat once his brother was properly bundled up. He looked at Hank first, then at Gavin for just a glance before settling on Hank once more. “I apologize for the late hour,” he said, holding Hank’s coat closed with one slender, pale hand at his throat. “My name is Connor. Connor Arkay. This is my younger brother Nines.”

Two things happened once he’d finished that brief introduction. Firstly, the idea of Connor being the _older_ brother hit Hank somewhere in the funny bone. Nines had at least three inches on him and probably a good thirty pounds. Secondly, Gavin, who had been in the midst of lifting himself onto his desk, slipped. His wrist buckled or his palm caught on a stray piece of paper, and it went sliding out from under him, sending him back onto the floor with a clatter. For a moment all eyes turned to him.

“Did you just say… Arkay?” he murmured, unashamed of his flub and more interested in what had admittedly become the elephant in the room.

Hank raised a brow. “That mean somethin’ to you?” he wondered, looking back at the brothers in front of him. Connor’s eyes were wide. Was he surprised or were they always that big? It’d be just Hank’s luck if a pretty pair like this were on parole or out on bail for some murder scheme. If they’d come crawlin’ in here for his help, he’d have to come to terms with his luck being shittier than he’d first thought. “‘Scuse me if my rolodex is a bit out of date. I don’t keep up much with current events.”

Gavin scoffed at him for that. Hank didn’t miss how Connor flinched a little at the sound. “Really? Their name gets plastered all over the papers every time there’s some big gala goin’ on downtown,” Gavin said, shaking his head as he took in the two brothers with a wry grin on his face. He nodded towards them and said, “These two here are scions. Rich kids with rich parents who own stock in all the companies that make this city run.”

Connor’s expression puckered. Hank raised a brow when he squeezed his brother’s hand. The two of them looked young, maybe a bit younger than Reed, and that seemed entirely too old to be holding hands like this for so long. “About that,” Connor said quietly. He shifted on his feet and brushed his shoulder against Nines’s. “Our parents… Well… That’s the reason we’ve come. They’ve… I mean… There’s… It’s… just...”

“Come on, spit it out.” Gavin waved his hand in the air and tried to rush him along. “Gone missing? Kidnapped? Daddy cheating on mommy with the some pretty lady lookin’ for money?”

“What? No,” the elder brother said, brow furrowed.

“Then what is it?” Gavin glanced at the clock. He was tired and cranky and impatient, and to be honest, so was Hank. “We don’t get people coming here for much else. ‘Specially this late at night.”

Nines stiffened and Connor hunched his shoulders. He looked at the floor. The hand that wasn’t holding his brothers was fisted tightly in the fabric of Hank’s coat sleeve. He really was so small compared to it. “Our parents… aren’t… _with_ us anymore.” He looked up towards Hank and Gavin, biting down on his lips like he hoped they understood.

Hank did. He… Yeah. He just did.

“They’ve died,” Hank said quietly. Gavin closed his mouth and let out a soft huff. He probably felt like an ass now. “Sorry for your loss.”

“Yeah,” Gavin echoed with a hint of contrition in his voice. Hank wouldn’t give him shit for that. It was more than he normally showed. “Sorry.”

Connor nodded his head. His shoulders were shaking beneath the big coat. Probably not from the cold now. Hank knew grief when he saw it. He looked it in the eye every time he glanced in a mirror, in the dingy outline of himself in the glass of a half-drained bottle when the pain got to be too much. It was there in these two, especially in the way Nines held himself, shrinking in on himself even though he stood so tall and took up so much space. Hank sucked on his teeth.

“Except,” he said, looking Connor square in the eye, “they were killed, weren’t they? You wouldn’t come to us if it was something normal, right? I don’t take it you’re here because of blackmail photos or anything like that.”

Connor’s lips parted and they stayed that way as he tried to reply. His brow rose, then fell, then his eyes averted completely as he stared at the floor he was slowly drenching with the water still dripping sluggishly from the clothes Hank could now see were expensive beneath the rain. All silks and fancy prints, pleats and folds once crisply starched by confident hands of the servants these two no doubt had.

And yet they’d walked here. In the rain. At night. Alone.

“I can see your skills of observation weren’t exaggerated,” Connor murmured eventually. His ears were tinged pink. From the cold maybe. From Hank seeing right though him maybe. “Yes. Our parents were killed. Yesterday in fact. We… We came here as soon as we could, all things… permitting. Do you mind if we sit down?” He tacked on the request suddenly, wrapping his free arm around his brother’s back. “We’ve been on our feet all night.”

Hank promptly felt like a bastard. “Ah, right, yeah,” he said, looking around for the chairs they usually kept for client meetings. They were tucked up against one of the walls, practically hidden beneath the stacks of junk piled on top of them. “Gavin, go clean them off some chairs.”

“You’re closer, why can’t you—”

“Gavin,” Hank repeated, sharper this time. He narrowed his eyes at his partner, and Gavin glared right on back before Nines let out the ghost of a sneeze. After that Gavin just stifled a scoff and pushed away from his desk, tossing the stacks of old files and stray books onto the floor before dragging the dusty-but-still-padded chairs away from the wall and towards the shivering brothers.

“Thank you,” Connor said quietly to Gavin’s back as he stomped back over to his desk. He watched him go and then guided Nines into his seat first before taking his own. God, he looked pathetic like that. Like a doused puppy left out in the rain, dwarfed by Hank’s coat and the chair despite standing at least six feet tall. Though, Hank supposed most people would look small when standing beside someone as big as Nines. That probably had a lot to do with it all.

“Now,” came that smooth voice. It brought Hank’s attention back where it probably should have been; namely, the job at hand. “Where were we? Right. Our parents… Well, they were killed. It was… sudden. It really doesn’t even feel real yet.”

Connor steepled his fingers at that, finally letting go of his brother’s hand. Nines folded his hands in his lap, back rigid and posture so perfect it’d make any tutor proud. His fingers were white with how tight he was clasping them together. Hank raised a brow at that but didn’t comment. Maybe he was just upset. Connor certainly looked like he was.

A grunt sounded from the corner. All eyes turned towards Gavin but for Nines who kept his focused on his hands. Gavin had his arms crossed, hip propped against the edge of his desk. His gun was half-hidden behind his thigh like this. “What exactly did you come here for?” he asked a little more forward than Hank would have liked. Gavin cocked his head and furrowed his brow. “I haven’t heard anythin’ about the Arkay’s suffering at the hands of any murder, and unlike _him—”_ He gestured his head towards Hank, “--I _do_ keep up with the papers. So, either there is no murder and you’re pulling our legs, or—”

“There is a murder,” Connor pressed, but Gavin wasn’t done.

“ _Or,”_ he said louder, “the cops ruled it natural causes and haven’t told the papers yet, and the two of you came in out of the rain to tell us they made the wrong call.”

Well, Gavin wasn’t wrong. As much as they disagreed, they rarely came to different conclusions when it came down to it. Hank nodded, clearing his throat to pull the attention back onto him. “I’m guessing it’s the latter that brought you here,” he said, smiling despite himself when Connor graced him with a weak smile and an emphatic nodding of the head. God, just like a puppy.

Connor’s long, pale fingers pulled apart, wrapping around the dinged up old armrests on the chair. The edge of Hank’s coat began to slip down his shoulder. Nines glanced up at that and fixed it for him without saying a word. Connor murmured a thank you to his brother and then returned his attention to Hank.

“That is why we’re here,” he said with a nod. His smile slowly faded. “It’s… It’s a bit more involved than just a simple matter of the police making the wrong call. It’s… messy.”

Messy. Hank didn’t like messy. His entire life was messy enough without adding to it. He brought up a hand to knead at his tired eyes, regretting not putting on another pot of coffee when the pitcher had run low a few hours ago. “Why don’t you start at the beginning,” he said helpfully. If he were about to dip his toes into messy, he might as well hear it from the top.

Connor’s adam’s apple bobbed with a swallow. “Yes. Well. I guess I should tell you a bit about our family, so you have proper context,” he said, tapping his foot against the floor. One-two-three, one-two-three. Almost like a tick. “Like your partner said before, the Arkay family is involved with many businesses in this city. It’d be faster to name the companies we don’t have corporate interest in than the name the ones we do have in some shape or another. It’s… Well…” His face puckered up at that. “Sometimes its unsavory business. I won’t sugarcoat it. My family has made its fortune in many ways, and some of those ways make me ashamed to carry the name I’ve got.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard shit like that,” Gavin tossed in, drumming his fingers on his bicep. He stared straight at the brothers even when Hank tried to meet his eye. “Not quite mafia but damn near close. Tends to pay well to be well received by your family.”

Connor gave an almost embarrassed sort of nod. “That’s a faster way of saying it, yes. My grandparents came to this city from the old country and dug their hands deep into the city’s foundations. Sometimes that meant supporting a candidate for mayor. Sometimes… Well, sometimes it meant getting in good with the dons who came here from their own countries to make sure that our corporate interests were always considered before major decisions were made. My parents… didn’t try to distance themselves from that culture. They expected my brother and I to follow suit as well once they retired from public life.”

Things were beginning to come together like a story with the ending already spoiled in Hank’s mind. He wrinkled his nose. “And when was that supposed to be?” he asked.

“New Years, or around that,” Connor said. “Soon. There was a party planned. I… I suppose that’s all over now.”

Hank hated being right. He ran his hand down his beard tiredly. “So, someone didn’t like your parents and the work they did. They saw their chance for revenge dwindling with their retirement on the horizon, and they struck when they saw the opportunity present itself.” Rich people didn’t tend to stay in the city when they got old. Too much hustling, too much bustling. They’d retire to the countryside and save their city jaunts for galas and shit like that. Too unpredictable for a casual assassin to swing. “Common enough story around here. Your parents pissed off the mob and got hit. Case closed.”

Connor sucked in a breath and let it out slowly through his teeth. He shifted a little in his seat. “It’s… not that cut and dry, I’m afraid.” His eyes flicked upwards to meet Hank’s. “The police responded when we called them and ruled it benign. They refused to open an investigation, which leads me to believe that someone or something is pulling the strings behind it all. And… I knew my parents well, Detective. We were a close family despite the ways my parents conducted our family business, and I would have known if they had done something unsavory enough to draw the ire of the mob. We regularly had high ranking members of those… groups… over for dinner parties. They were always well received. They always left with high regards for my family. For my parents.”

Gavin scoffed. It was an ugly sound, one that made both brothers flinch a bit. “Kid, your parents were mafia lap dogs,” he said bluntly. “And the mafia? Well, they don’t give two fucks about kicking their dogs if they don’t do what they want them to do fast enough. Everything might’ve looked all fine and pretty on the outside, but shit can turn sour like _that.”_ He snapped his fingers and the sound was punctuated by the rumble of thunder. “The police probably didn’t want to get involved in something that obvious. No sense drawing heat their way when they had—”

“What my partner means,” Hank interrupted, knowing Gavin was about to say _when they had what was coming to them._ It was fucking true but even a tone deaf idiot like Hank could see these two rich kids were scared out of their minds and still holding onto the idea that their parents had been good people. “What he means is that the mafia has certain ways it operates and it’s not hard to piss them off enough to result in deaths all around. If the police refused to investigate, it probably means the case is closed. I don’t know what you heard or how you got our information, but we aren’t somehow better than the cops when it comes to this kind of thing. If you’re expecting us to stick our noses into mafia things…”

Hank trailed off, shaking his head helplessly. It felt a bit like kicking a dog as Gavin had said, but not out of disappointment. Hell, Hank was the one disappointing these kids. But he wasn’t an idiot. He’d been in this business for awhile now. He knew when to get involved, and if there was even a hint of mob activity in the air, he knew it wasn’t then.

“Ah…” Connor’s entire face crumbled. He slowly turned towards his brother and reached out a hand, easily taking one of Nines’s into his own. “That’s… That’s why we came to you tonight,” he said quietly, looking only at his brother. “The thing is… Nines saw the murder happen. I don’t think it _was_ the mafia.”

“Excuse me?” Gavin said after a pause. He pushed off his desk and kept moving until he stood at Hanks’s side. “Then what the fuck are you doing here? Take him to the police. Have him give a statement.”

“It’s not that simple,” Connor began.

Gavin was getting frustrated. Hank put his hand on his shoulder, holding him back before he could get out another word. “What’s not simple about it?” Hank asked, giving Gavin a warning look. This was clearly a delicate situation. He looked back at the brothers, namely Nines. He still hadn’t said a word. His shoulders were tense. He’d moved his free hand from his lap and had it clenched in the leather of Gavin’s coat. The other held Connor’s hand like a lifeline.

“Because,” Connor said, “Nines hasn’t spoken since… since it happened.” He swallowed, pressing his knees together as he looked at Hank and only Hank. “He’s never been the most talkative person. Even when we were kids he’d rarely answer the tutors or the servants. If they needed to ask him things, they’d have me do it for them. He’s always spoken to me. But… when I found him… Detective Anderson—”

“Hank,” he said, waving off that instantly. “Just Hank.”

Connor licked at his lips. “Hank. Alright. When I found him, Nines was covered in blood. He wouldn’t answer me no matter how many times I tried to ask if he was alright, and our parents…” He trailed off, every ounce of color disappearing from his face. “I don’t know how the police could rule anything that looked like _that_ natural,” he whispered after a moment. When he looked Hank in the eye, it was with cold resolution in his dark brown eyes. “I don’t know who else to turn to for this. If they could do that to my parents and get off scott free, I don’t want to imagine what they would do to us now to make sure the truth never came out.”

The words hung heavily in the air. Hank struggled to swallow when his mouth was as dry as bone. He chanced a look at Gavin and found his partner already looking his way. Gavin had paled a little bit. That didn’t inspire confidence in Hank one bit. Gavin was the cocky one, the young dipshit who carried his gun with him at all times and made a big point to let everyone know he wasn’t afraid to use it. To see him of all people _hesitant…_

Hank fought a shiver. He shuffled on his feet and fiddled with the rolled up sleeves at his elbows. Fuck. What had they just let into their office?

“What do you want us to do?” he asked, because they still hadn’t said. Hunting down the culprit… It was doable, but some niggling little feeling in his gut told him that they hadn’t come here just for that.

Connor Arkay sank his teeth into his bottom lip. It turned pink, then red. He released it and it was shiny slick. “What I want,” he said, “is for you to find the person responsible.”

Alright. Alright, doable. Hank sat up and made to speak—

“And I want you to keep us safe while you do it.”

And Hank promptly closed his mouth with a harsh click. Gavin, still at his side, bristled immediately. “We aren’t bodyguards,” he said roughly, putting his hands on his hips. “And we sure as shit aren’t babysitters.”

“We aren’t children,” Connor bit right back. “But even you have to understand how at risk we are. Especially Nines,” he said, lifting his brother’s hand. Nines averted his eyes instantly. It didn’t look like he enjoyed being the center of attention. “We can’t go back to our family home, and until our lawyers settle the affairs of the estate, we have no access to our family money. It could take weeks before we have the means to leave the city. We… We are _scared,_ Detectives.”

“And pennieless too,” Gavin added. He swung his head towards Hank and gestured to the brothers with a shrug of his shoulder. “We aren’t a charity here,” he said lowly. “And I don’t know about you, but I sure as shit don’t have the funds to be putting some rich kids up in a safehouse while we work.”

Connor made an impatient sound. It drew their attention back to him. His cheeks were still mottled with color. Bright, angry red, a red so puerille that it didn’t help Hank believe he wasn’t exactly what Gavin had just called them: rich kids. “We can pay you,” he insisted. “Like I said, we’ll have access to our family money in a few weeks. And we didn’t come here empty handed.”

At that Connor released his brother’s hand and dipped it beneath the folds of Hank’s coat to reach for something inside his clothes. He pulled it free— an envelope soaked through with rainwater. He held it out to Hank and Hank took it, flipping back the flap and peering inside. The warm heat of Gavin pressed against his side to look into it too.

They both took a collective inhale. There had to be at least—

“Ten thousand dollars,” Connor recited numbly. “We drained our accounts of what we had and sold our family signet rings. This is just a deposit. If you take on our case we will give you an addition fifty thousand upon completion.”

It took Hank a moment to find his voice. Gavin easily plucked the envelope from his lax fingers, counting the money shrewdly. It was more than they tended to make in six months, and it was just a _deposit._ “You could leave the city with this money,” he said. “You could wait out the lawyer shit and get your money and never come back.” So… why? Why come here? Why trust it all to them?

Connor looked at him. Just… looked, then reached into the depths of his pocket one more time to pull out a wrinkled, sodden business card. “Because,” he said in a quiet, fraught voice, “the one officer who gave a damn when he saw our parents dead gave me this. He… He told me, _if you need help, if you want help, go to these men. They’ll help you.”_

Hank slowly reached for the card. Connor gave it up without a fight. It was… Aw, shit. Hank hadn’t seen this typeface in six years. It was the first business card he’d ever had made for the place. Back when he had high hopes of making his way without the DPD. He’d given it to exactly one person on the force back then.

“Fowler,” he said quietly. “That old bastard.” He was chief now, wasn’t he? It made sense that if the whole department refused to act that he’d have the moral compass to still do what he could for these kids regardless. Politics of the place made it hard to act sometimes. It was good to know Fowler hadn’t completely given up his empathy for that big shiny desk and fat paycheck.

“We want to see justice done, Detective. Hank.” Connor stared down at the floor beneath his feet. “We could run, but this city is our home. We could move on, but they were our parents. We needed help. So… we came to you.”

He made it seem so simple when he said it like that. But it wasn’t. Nothing about this case or request was simple, and Hank knew he was an idiot for what he was about to say next.

“Do you mind if we talk for a minute?”

For entertaining the idea of accepting for even a minute more.

Connor dipped his head. He turned to face his brother and began to whisper in his ear, squeezing his hand firmly. Hank turned towards Gavin and they took a few steps away, facing the wall. Hank kneaded at his eyes. Gavin was still clutching the envelope of money. After a month of not taking a wage in order to keep the lights on, Hank could understand why he didn’t want to let it go.

“We have to take this job.” The statement came easily. Gavin’s voice was absolute. “We haven’t had a job in ages. Hell, we’re spending our nights combing old ass cold cases looking for leads to get money. We… Fuck, we have to take this.”

Hank sighed. He felt his age right now. Every single year of the fifty he’d lived, he felt in the marrow of his bones. “It’s dangerous,” he said, because someone had to say it. “They don’t think its mafia but we both know it probably is.”

“Fuck the mafia,” Gavin hissed, holding the money to his chest. “I’d take down that fuckhead Kamski myself if it meant a payout like this.”

“Christ, Reed, we have to put them up too,” he pressed, trying to make his partner see sense. This case wasn’t a cut and dry murder. It had… other sides to it. Other responsibilities.

Gavin snorted. “So fuckin’ what? You’ve got a spare room. I’ve got a couch.”

Hank couldn’t believe he was hearing this. Just a minute ago he’d been saying they didn’t have money to get them a safehouse, and now? “You really want to play host?” Hell, Gavin never let Hank come over for drinks. Even back during their DPD days Gavin refused to have people over even if the weekly poker nights rotated to his turn to host.

“For sixty thousand dollars? I’ll start a goddamn bed-and-breakfast,” he asserted, glancing over his shoulder. Hank followed his view. “Give me the big one. He’s quiet, right? I can handle quiet.”

“He’s traumatized,” Hank corrected. They both were. Connor hid it better. He was the elder brother, so he had to be the one in control, but Hank knew trauma and the pain of what swallowed grief looked like. It sat in the flush on Connor’s cheeks, in the dark rings under his eyes but the frantic energy he still put on.

“And I’ve got cats,” Gavin countered as if that were a cure-all to any sort of problem a person might have. “It’ll be fine.”

Hank sighed. He sighed until part of his tired old soul left his body and came back inside on the inhale. “You’re not going to give that cash back even if I say no, right?” he asked.

“Not even a chance.”

Of course. “Guess there’s no helping it,” he muttered, turning back around to face the brothers. “Let’s go greet our new clients properly then.” And tell them where they’d be staying for the foreseeable future. God, that was going to be a time. Hank hadn’t lived with someone else since… For awhile. No one but Sumo. This was going to take some getting used to.

What followed went marginally easier than the initial talk had before. Hank accepted their case and had his hand nearly shaken clear off his arm when Connor leapt to his feet and seized it between both of his own. His gratitude was almost a physical force, a tidal wave of relief and cloying trust and raised hopes that Hank had a feeling he’d lower before the week was out.

“We don’t have places big enough to put up the both of you together,” Hank explained, hoping that wouldn’t be a problem. With how close these two seemed he worried there’d be protests.

“We will take whatever you can spare us,” Connor said, surprising him once again. He let his hand settle on Nines’s shoulder. “I just ask that Nines goes wherever it’s safest. He’s the one I’m worried about. I… I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to him. He’s all I have left.”

“Don’t worry about him,” Gavin said in a marked show of empathy. He patted the gun on his hip. “I never take this off and I’m a good shot. Better than Hank by a mile at least. Your brother will be in good hands.” He let his eyes shift onto Nines. A smirk quirked his lips. “Just hope he likes cats, though. I got a few of ‘em.”

Those bright blue eyes finally left the floor. They widened, then looked away but not before a pink tint took up root on his pale cheeks. Huh. Alright then.

“And, uh, I’ve got a dog,” Hank admitted since it seemed they were disclosing things like that. “And a spare room.”

Connor’s smile looked real when it was turned on Hank. “Really?” he said, eyes tired but shoulders at ease. “I love dogs.”

That… did something to Hank. Something he swallowed down in an instant and quickly tamped down as hard as he possibly could, to be reexamined _never._ “Good,” he grunted, coughing a bit as he looked back at his desk still full of papers, then up at the clock that had gone two full rotations in the time it took to get here. “We’ll just… uh, get our stuff together. Then take you guys to where you’ll be staying while we work on your case.” He assumed the brothers didn’t have much in the way of belongings. Or, maybe they did and had them out on the doorstep. Hank didn’t know, but these two seemed the type to come prepared.

Prepared and ready to do whatever it took to get to the bottom of their parents deaths, even if that meant crashing in the houses of two ne’er-do-well ex-cops in a dingy old office with a busted old fireplace and coffee ring stains on the desks.

As the brothers embraced and Connor whispered encouragingly into Nines’s ear, Hank was left with the realization that he had probably just stepped foot into a bigger, uglier mess than he’d ever wanted to sign on for at two a.m. on a shitty, rainy, dreary night like tonight. A murder, the mafia, and a silent witness in danger of being the next victim. It was like something out of a novel. The corner of his lips quirked as an old phrase of his father’s rose up unbidden from his memories. God, was it fitting as he looked at the Arkay brothers.

_Ten pounds of trouble in a five pound sack._

Hank looked over at Gavin and saw his partner had his eyes glued on the brothers. On Nines.

 _Make that fifteen,_ Hank amended silently.

God, he was so fucked.

**Author's Note:**

> before you get all up in arms, i need to emphasize i do not have time right now to do more chapters to this! mystery stories take a lot of effort and a lot of planning to write and with my book schedule and Letifer still in progress, i cannot add on another chaptered work of this type right now. once letifer is done i might revisit it though, so long as theres desire for it. 
> 
> if you liked this, leave a comment! follow me on twitter @tdcloud_writes and check out my original work under the name T.D. Cloud! thank you for reading and until next time!


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